Do's and Don'ts of Becoming a Hero in Another Reality
by Lemonbookworm
Summary: Class 1-A gets five new students in the middle of the school year. They're friendly and hard-working, there's nothing to worry about. Except for the fact that Izuku can't help but become suspicious when the five act extremely strange around certain topics, have unnaturally powerful quirks, and constantly whisper about some made-up planets when they think nobody is watching.
1. Chapter 1

"The police refuse to leak more information concerning the huge explosion uptown this morning, but witnesses have mentioned seeing a large glowing object falling the sky and crashing. Could this be a new villain making their debut?"

It was a rare thing to see the entirety of class 1-A sitting on the couches in the lounge, all gawking at the TV like a bunch of little children witnessing a magic trick. Today, however, was one of those times. It almost looked like a huge sleepover – snacks, blankets, unhealthy amounts of soda, constant bickering over who gets the remote. All this over some stupid Saturday news report.

"The pro heroes won't have a problem defeating a villain with the quirk of being able to turn into a spaceship," Bakugou growled, shoving a handful of chips into his mouth.

Izuku decided it would be better to keep his opinion to himself in Bakugou's presence, no matter how interested he actually was in that flying object. The screen was now showing a picture of the scene after the explosion – it had caused huge damage, but there was no trace of a spaceship whatsoever. This villain's quirk wasn't necessarily flawlessly functional, but it was certainly fascinating.

"What if it's actually an alien and the flying thing was its spaceship?" Mina chimed in with a big grin on her face.

Iida was about to protest, but someone placed a hand in front of his mouth and pushed him back.

"She has a point, some civilians claim the thing looked like a metal creature," Kaminari added, holding up his phone with a news article about the events while Iida tried to push him off.

"A metal creature? What exactly?" Kirishima leaned over his friend's shoulder to read what the site had to say about the incident. "Ah, it doesn't even mention what it resembled! It just keeps talking about All Might saving all the civilians-"

"All Might was there? We could ask him about it!" Izuku exclaimed, already searching his pockets for his phone to text his mentor. A second later, he realized the pro heroes had to keep the confidential information a secret too, and promptly put his device back down.

"Maybe it was just an accident. Perhaps someone with a powerful quirk lost control of it?" Yaoyorozu stated, then got up from the carpet she had been sitting on. "It's pretty late anyway and we have school tomorrow. We should go to our dorms. It's just another villain attack at best, and the heroes are obviously capable to take care of it."

Most girls, as well as a few of the boys, followed her, and as the report ended, the others slowly left too. Izuku was the last.

He finally reached his room at around 10:45. Only then did he notice the unread message from All Might on his phone. His eyes widened and his fingers clumsily unlocked the phone before tapping the small icon of the messaging app.

**All Might:**  
_Midoriya my boy, can we have a talk tomorrow after school? There are some things I need to discuss with you._

Izuku frowned. What did All Might want to talk about? What was that important that he texted him this late at night? The thought that this perhaps had to do with that explosion today crossed his mind. Then again, why would his mentor want to involve Midoriya in it? From how the news has put it, it didn't seem like All For One was even partially responsible for this, yet there was still the possibility that the police just didn't want to worry the public.

He sighed and started typing, hands still shaky from the excitement that still hadn't subsided.

**Midoriya Izuku:**  
_I'll be there!_

That would be enough, he hoped. A familiar feeling of nervousness and curiosity settled in his chest as he placed his phone on the nightstand and shifted in his bed to look at the dark ceiling. 

"So you mean to tell me that you're from another reality?" Aizawa leaned over the desk, narrowed eyes observing every blink, every twitch, every single movement of the five teenagers in front of him. They had been wrapped in blankets and given something to drink, which they weren't exactly deserving of in his opinion. They had just destroyed a small part of the city, after all.

"Yes, Sir." The oldest one, who could've even been considered a young adult, replied. According to the police officers, he had claimed to be a certain Takashi Shirogane. The only one of the bunch with a Japanese name. He, just like the others, was dressed in some ridiculous color-coded armor over a black bodysuit – almost like a team of superheroes, Aizawa noted, though they all seemed to lack any support items or anything suiting their quirks.

Except that they were quirkless, at least that's what their examination a few hours prior indicated. There was no reason not to believe what they were saying, other than for the fact that it sounded absolutely unreasonable.

"Look, we were fighting this one evil alien witch who then opened a portal of some sorts and we got sucked in. We don't like being here either, and it's our highest priority to get back to our world. We've got a universe to defend, we don't have time to mess around with some grumpy superhero dudes." The talkative Latino started rambling again, only to stop once his friend in the red armor sent him another death glare.

"I see. It'd also be quite difficult to secretly build those robot lions, I admit." Aizawa sighed and got up, folding his arms over his chest, eyes still fixated on the 'paladins'. "Look, my time here is almost up. My colleagues and I are going to discuss what we could do with you five... While you weren't directly mentioned anywhere in the news, someone will get suspicious sooner or later and start playing detective. We want to avoid that. Please refrain from seeking attention." With that, he made his way to the door and left the room.

This was the first time in the last five hours that the paladins were left alone. Sure, there were security cameras in every corner of the room, but they had told the truth, they had nothing to hide. There was no way to escape anyway, the room was a plain white cube with one metal door on the side and no windows.

Lance turned to Shiro. "What are we going to do now?"

"We'll wait and see. They aren't exactly overjoyed about our arrival, but as long as we play along, we should be fine."

"It just feels… I don't know, kind of weird, I guess..." Hunk mumbled. "The thought of everyone here having powers… Man, I'm sure not everyone uses it for the right cause… And as the paladins, we have a kind of responsibility to do the right thing, but we have no idea how this society functions and I'm afraid we'll mess something up."

"Well, at least we're back on earth, I guess? I mean, I've wanted to return to earth ever since we left, but… Not like this. This isn't our earth." Lance said, burying his head in his hands.

Pidge spoke up after taking a sip of her drink. "On the bright side, they treat us like delusional teens instead of some potentially dangerous alien-kids. That's a silver lining, I suppose?"

"But we have to get back into our reality as soon as possible. Allura and Coran are still there, the universe is still in danger… But we can't just open a wormhole or something, we can't even look for a way without raising suspicion!" Keith groaned.

"Don't worry about that, we'll take care of everything." Suddenly, someone opened the door and a small rodent-like creature stepped into the room. "It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Nezu, the principal of one of the schools in this city: UA."

Lance raised his eyebrows. Were animals able to talk in this reality? Did they have typical human attributes like the animals in fables and such? He glanced at the others, who seemed to have similar thoughts running through their heads. Sure, they had seen all kinds of aliens during their time as paladins, but they normally didn't wear suits and acted this much like humans.

"Earlier this day, you five have been interrogated by an officer with a power that forces you to tell the truth – without you noticing it, of course. Anyways, we now know you're telling the truth, or at least what you think is the truth. We have your giant robot as evidence, anyway. To avoid that thing causing mass panic or you getting into any sorts of trouble, we've decided that we're going to help you by trying to find a way to get you back into your reality. In a way, you're heroes too, after all." The principal sat down at the same desk that Aizawa guy had used just a few minutes ago. His head was barely visible from behind it, but he didn't seem the slightest bit bothered by that fact. "Of course, we want to ensure your safety as well, and that's why we've decided to come up with something: You get enrolled in my school as first-year students. That way, we get to keep a close eye on you, and you get integrated into this society pretty fast. What do you say?"

"I'm sorry, we don't plan on staying that long-" Keith interrupted, his horrified expression showing just how much he was looking forward to going back to school once again.

"Oh, you wouldn't be staying for the whole school year, of course, just as long as it takes to figure out a method to traverse realities. That takes a while, though. A month or two, to be more precise. Think of it as being exchange students from another country."

"And what about the age difference? Surely, you couldn't pass me off as a high school student..." Shiro asked, a hint of genuine curiosity laced in his voice.

"Oh, that's no problem! We could blame it on your quirk, say you had to repeat a few grades, or easily make you look a few years younger." Nezu flashed a smile, then took out a stack of papers from a suitcase under the desk. "We'd be able to temporarily turn your robots into some sort of quirks. UA is a hero school, it'd be necessary for you to have powers... Though I have to say the procedure is a bit risky."

"That's fine with me. And you guys?" Pidge looked at the

others with a glint of enthusiasm in her eyes, as if simply the thought of being part of an experiment excited her.

After everyone agreed – some voluntarily, some not -, the white-furred creature handed all the papers over to them. "Alright then! Welcome to UA, paladins of Voltron." 

"This feels so weird," Hunk mumbled, tilting his head as he looked at himself in the mirror. The school uniform didn't necessarily look bad on him, but he felt like it looked a bit odd, especially compared to the Garrison's uniforms. "Can you guys hear your lions in your heads too?"

"Yeah, and I hate it," Lance replied. He was eating cereal, and it was the seventh time he had accidentally activated his quirk, causing the milk to freeze in the bowl. Superhero-fruit loops didn't taste as good with chunks of ice in them. "You don't feel the ice when letting the blue lion freeze things over. But now I am partially the blue lion, and my hands are quiznakking cold."

"You'll get used to it." Pidge shrugged, trying to catch a glimpse of herself in the mirror while Hunk adjusted his tie. It's been a while since she last wore a skirt, but it made her kind of nostalgic, reminding her of the conversations on the roof with Matt. Gosh, she would have to wait even longer now to find her brother and dad. "By the way, do other versions of us exist in this reality?"

"Hm, good question… Even if they did, they would live on the other side of the world, right?" Keith stepped into the kitchen area of the small apartment they had gotten and grabbed one of the bags laying by the counter. "Besides, if they never became paladins, they wouldn't be able to understand what we're saying, most likely. What language are we even speaking right now, did our lions adjust and let us understand Japanese?"

"Most likely, yeah." Shiro sighed. He did indeed look a few years younger, probably around nineteen or so. Everyone still needed to get used to it, even he himself – the sight of a younger Shiro who had a white streak in his hair and the scar across his nose made feel out of place and mismatched. "C' mon, I don't think Aizawa would be happy about us running late on the first day. I'm sure he wants to introduce us to the class."

"Geez, right, we'll have to get along with a bunch of other teens… Do you think they'll be amazed by our powers?" Lance put a hand under his chin and smirked, wiggling his eyebrows obnoxiously.

"Lance, our classmates are probably used to such 'quirks', this is the top hero school in the country. And I don't think a Prince Charming is more important to them than their studies." Keith rolled his eyes and walked to the door where Shiro was waiting. Lance being such a flirt wasn't a new thing, sure, but he had hoped that at least in this reality, he would stop flirting with others and focus on working with the team instead.

"Alright, alright! You're just jealous, I get it." Lance laughed, finishing his cereal and hurriedly cleaning up after himself. That comment resulted in Keith rolling his eyes once more, something he seemed to be doing a lot more often lately. As if he didn't have the energy to reply to every stupid thing Lance said lately.

"Question: Are the lions in our heads able to telepathically communicate with each other?" Hunk asked to change the topic, though he was genuinely interested too. While the thought was super cool, it also raised the question if they would be able to do other things the lions could normally do, like forming Voltron. The image of the five of them merging shook him up and he quickly tried to forget about it. 

Exactly fifteen minutes after the beginning of class, the door the classroom of 1-A slid open and their homeroom teacher finally stepped in. Everyone looked up from their desks, puzzled, confused expression plastered on their faces. What was Aizawa doing here during their English lesson?

Present Mic grinned and sat down, back leaned against the chalkboard he was sitting right in front of. "Eraserhead! You finally brought them here!"

Them? What was Mic talking about?

Izuku tried to stand up without getting noticed to take a better look at their homeroom teacher. He didn't seem to be holding anything, and he had been the only one to enter the room.

The rest of the class seemed to share Izuku's curiosity, which let him believe this was really something unannounced since he wasn't the only one to not remember it.

"Good morning, class," Aizawa said in his usual monotone voice, his cold stare meeting dozens of piercing eyes. "This is a bit sudden, but we have five students who are going to join this class for a while. Please treat them with respect." His voice was so lacking of emotion that it was clear that he only said that because of formalities. While he was still speaking, he opened the door once more and let a bunch of teens come in.

Silence settled in the room as the class stared at the five in bewilderment. And they had all right to – after all, it was the middle of the school year, and 1. the newbies seemed to be a bit older than first-years, just seemed to radiate an aura that practically screamed 'we're out of place here', not for the reason that not every one of them looked Japanese, but because two of them were whispering in a strange, unrecognizable language between each other. At least it seemed like that, but perhaps Izuku just didn't hear them quite right; they were whispering, after all.

"Thank you, Eraserhead! Now, kids, do you want to introduce yourself?" Present Mic asked with a smile, gently pushing them towards the class.

The five shared a look for a second, then the tallest one stepped forward, eyes looking through the crowd of students as if they were looking for a certain someone. Izuku couldn't quite explain it, but the boy somehow gave him the impression that he's been through a lot. He reminded him of All Might in a way, though he couldn't tell if it was the All Might in his muscular form or the All Might only a few knew about, the exhausted and not-all-that-powerful version of him.

"My name is Takashi Shirogane, but you can just call me Shiro. It's nice to meet you all. These are Keith Kogane, Pidge or Katie Holt, Lance McClain, and Hunk Garrett."

"Okay, thank you all," Present Mic gave Shiro a pat on the back, which was just a tiny bit awkward because of the height difference, then turned to the class. "Seems like we don't have enough seats. I'll get them for you, wait here!" With that, he stormed out the door and the class was left alone, the five new students still standing between the door and the teacher's desk awkwardly.

"Did you transfer from another hero school?" Kirishima was the first to speak up, flashing a bright smile to the transfers.

"Uhm… Yeah, we're from a school in the US that specializes on space-exploration mostly, but the cadets also get hero training there." Keith said matter-of-factly.

That, however, simply seemed to amaze some of the students, mainly Mina, who sprung up from her seat and rushed over to them. "How cool! Have you ever been to space, then?"

"Yeah, quite a few times, actually," Lance replied, rubbing the back of his neck with a grin. "We are actually- Ouch!" He gripped his side and shot Pidge a glare, who on the other hand showed no remorse for elbowing him.

"Are your quirks space-related too?" Sero joined in, observing the teens in front of him, trying to find out their quirks just by looking at them.

"Ehm, well, the-"

A small explosion on the side of the room managed to get the other's attention. It was, of course, none other than Bakugou, who had leaned forward and almost flipped over his desk, glaring daggers at the five teens before him. "Who cares. They're just some stupid exchange students who think they're special just because they've been to space. Space exploration is an easy thing to do compared to fighting superheroes. I bet the only reason they're here is that they're not good enough at fighting and have some catching up to do."

Izuku was about to turn around and attempt to tell Kacchan to calm down, but before he knew it, one of the new kids, the one in the red jacket, was already at Bakugou's desk, leaning on it and having a stare-down contest with Izuku's classmate.

"Quit it."

Izuku watched as Kacchan targeted Keith's chest with an explosion, the black haired boy stumbling back, almost falling on Izuku's desk.

"Keith, please don't!"

"Stop it, you two!"

Iida and Shiro spoke almost at the same time. Keith sighed and retreated, going back to his friends, while Bakugou turned to face Iida and started shouting about minding his own business.

Great. If Keith was another hothead like Bakugou… Izuku would've preferred not to think about what was coming in the following weeks.

Present Mic returned a few moments later, asking the five transfer students to follow him and help him carry the desks. In the few minutes they were gone, no one spoke a word, except for an occasional 'what do you think about the new kids?'.

They returned soon enough and sat down in the back of the class as if nothing had happened. They were quiet during the rest of the lesson, even though it was clear that they knew about the topic, it was an English lesson after all.

During lunch, the five decided to sit in the corner of the cafeteria, as if to avoid being noticed and having to talk to people. Izuku would be having none of that, though. He glanced at Uraraka and Iida, who both nodded as a response to his unvoiced question, then started making their way towards the table Shiro and the others were sitting at.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Author's note: Hey there! **_

_**I'm so happy to be back. It's been five months since I've uploaded the first chapter, and I feel horrible for not updating sooner. My computer broke and I couldn't get it fixed until recently. I'm terribly sorry for making you all wait for so long. I appreciate every one of your comments asking me to continue, it means the world to me! **_

_**Anyways, I hope you enjoy the story! **_

_**I feel like the characterization isn't quite on point, but at this point, I finally want to post this chapter instead of rewriting it one more time. I hope you liked it nonetheless. If you have any feedback/suggestions/critique, please comment, it would be greatly appreciated! I'll try to post the next chapter as soon as possible (I promise it won't take half a year this time ;)).**_

"I mean, is there a point in trying to fit in?" Keith stabbed a piece of vegetable on his plate with his fork before putting the food in his mouth in the angriest manner one could possibly manage. "This whole going-to-school thing is just holding us back from doing what we actually need to do!"

Lance sighed and shook his head. "The scientists of this world are already working on it, remember? We're still in control of the whole research anyway." While speaking, he gestured towards Pidge. She had been allowed to lead the whole research – the scientists here must've realized that she knew the most about alien technology. "My point is: they're trying to help us. There's not much we can do here other than cooperating – at least not yet. Might as well lean back and enjoy having normal food again, don't you think?"

"Keith is kind of right, though. If we're believed to be dead, the whole universe could potentially descend into chaos. I mean, the fall of Voltron is a huge deal, all our allies would-" Pidge stopped abruptly in the middle of her sentence, pressing her lips together into a thin line and staring down at her half-empty plate.

The reason for that became clear a second later when three students appeared at their table; a girl and two boys, all holding food trays just like almost everyone else in the cafeteria. After taking a better look at them, Lance realized that the three were classmates of theirs, though he couldn't associate their faces with any names. That didn't come as a big surprise, none of their classmates had really introduced themselves in their first few classes together – the teachers had complied with their request to not make a big deal out of their arrival, and the paladins had also tried to avoid any interaction between the hero-trainees and themselves.

"Hello there! Mind if we sit here?" The girl was the first to speak, flashing a big smile that clearly showed that she had nothing but good intentions. It was the kind of smile that was so contagious it practically forced you to be at ease.

After Shiro nodded, she and her friends plopped down onto the three empty seats at the table. Lance eyed the guy taking a seat next to him with uncertainty, but quickly shifted his gaze to his food when the boy with glasses cleared his throat and turned to him.

"Let us introduce ourselves: My name is Tenya Iida, I'm the class representative of 1-A, so feel free to turn to me if you have any questions. These are Izuku Midoriya and Ochaco Uraraka. It's nice to meet you."

While Midoriya and Uraraka repeated the boy's last sentence, the paladins muttered out some sorry excuse of an introduction as well, accompanied by a barely audible 'nice to meet you too'.

"So, um… What do you think of UA? Do you like it here?" Uraraka asked after a short pause filled with awkward silence. She didn't seem to be bothered by the silence at all, or at least she chose to ignore it by leaning forward, one arm holding up her chin, acting as if this was one of the most interesting conversations she'd ever had.

"Well… Absolutely. It's really cool, but also so huge, and I'm kind of afraid I'll get lost. The cafeteria is great too, I'm amazed how-" Thankfully, Hunk's rambling shifted all the attention to him, giving the four other paladins a chance to get in character. There seemed to be an unspoken agreement between them that they would continue their discussion later, perhaps when they got home. For now, they just had to concentrate on not slipping up.

"What's _your _school like?" The girl sitting next to Iida seemed to have a bunch of questions she wanted to be answered before lunch ended, and she was very determined to know everything about the newbies by the time they finished their food. "What was its name again? You haven't mentioned it yet, right?"

The paladins shared a look of incertitude and worry. Did the Garrison exist in this world? If not, and anyone was to find out the school they claim to go to doesn't exist, they would have a hard time blending in, let alone not raising suspicion. But what choice did they have? They had to answer Uraraka's question, staying silent now would've been even worse.

Through some silent argument between them (that consisted of them glaring at each other until one gave in), they decided that Lance was the unlucky one who had to come up with an answer. "It's called Garrison. It's a bit hard to explain what exactly we do there, but it's practically nothing more than astronaut training...with superpowers."

"...Exactly. We need to go through hero training as well because we're actively using our powers during work." Shiro added, now that he finally came up with a logical explanation for their visit to this school. "The school encourages its students to participate in exchange programs to improve their powers even more. That's why we're here."

"Whoa… Your quirks must be great if you made it into UA then! I haven't heard of anyone from your school ever being here. We do have another American exchange students in class 1-B though, maybe we could introduce you to her!" Midoriya suggested but was rendered speechless shortly after when he noticed Iida's serious expression.

"You said you've already been to space, right? Several times. If you use your quirks during your missions, doesn't that mean you'd need a provisional hero license to be allowed to take part in them? Or do you already _have_ provisional hero licenses?"

Keith felt like he should be distressed about what Iida had just said, as there was clearly something bad about it, something that had the potential to blow their cover. Except he had no idea what a provisional hero license was and thus he didn't get Iida's point at all. Fortunately, the others didn't seem to have a clue either. At least he wasn't alone.

After seeing the confused faces of the five paladins, Midoriya came to their defense. "Maybe they didn't use their quirks during their space missions so far… You didn't have your provisional hero license exam yet, right?"

Keith shook his head, eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

Uraraka seemed to let out a sigh of relief. "Good. We'll have ours in a few weeks, it would've been weird for you guys to go through all the preparations a second time."

Lance opened his mouth to say something. To ask about the license exam thing, Keith guessed. He sent the blue Paladin a threatening look, hoping that Lance would understand what he meant. Sure, they've never tested their 'quirks' before and an exam didn't sound like the best idea right now, but it's not like they could do anything about it.

To his surprise, Lance glared back. Not only that, but he rolled his eyes at him and drew Midoriya's attention to the two of them. The green-haired boy glanced back and forth between the two, his gaze lingering a bit longer on Keith as if he judged him to be the more threatening one. He'd probably already labeled Keith as aggressive after the incident with the blonde guy during first period. Great.

Giving up on the nonsense at last, Lance ran a hand through his hair and turned to the others. "Anyways, what are we doing after lunch? What are our classes in the afternoon, I mean?"

"Woah! You guys have matching hero costumes?" Midoriya heard Kaminari exclaim and turned around.

"Um... Well, they're not exactly hero costumes, more like astronaut suits..."Shiro tried to explain, nervously rubbing the back of his neck while doing so, but Sero interrupted him.

"They're so simplistic though! Don't you need some huge backpack thing filled with oxygen for- wait, are those jet packs?" Before Hunk could protest, Sero had already grabbed his chest plate, examining it with such amazement that one could've thought he had never seen a piece of armor before.

Keith sighed. "They're more complex than they look, I promise." He hurriedly put on the rest of his equipment, visibly uncomfortable about being stared at by everyone. Or he was just worried that Sero would take his armor as well, which by the way would have been a completely rational concern.

While Midoriya resumed putting on his costume after the commotion had died down, he couldn't help but look at the four exchange students from time to time. He had hoped seeing their hero outfits would make it easier to guess their quirks, but that obviously wasn't the case. They didn't have any support items either besides that weird_ thing _Keith was fidgeting around with. It resembled a weapon, but it also didn't have any sharp parts that could hurt anyone.

His train of thoughts was interrupted by Iida ordering that they better hurry up as they should be in the practice arena already. Shiro, Keith, Lance, and Hunk reluctantly left the locker room, seemingly indecisive whether they should be relieved, nervous or excited, though Midoriya couldn't think of any reasons for them to be that nervous about it. They probably weren't met with high expectations since they're only exchange students. Besides, they must have great skills if they got into UA's student exchange program, right?

Barely five minutes later, the whole class was standing in the middle of the practice arena, surrounded by various teachers. Midoriya found it particularly delightful to watch the five Garrison students look around in complete astonishment at the huge training space. It reminded him just how special UA actually was compared to other hero schools.

"Alright, we already talked about working on your ultimate moves yesterday. You know what to do." Aizawa mumbled with the same lack of enthusiasm as always. "Come to me if you need help with anything, you five." He gestured towards Shiro and the others, then took a step back, letting Cementoss and Ectoplasm take over.

Everyone distanced themselves from the others and started working on their quirks. At least that what it seemed like. In reality, most students were paying more attention to the five students who still haven't left the small circle they've been standing in for the past five or so minutes. There was an obvious tension in the room; impatience, curiosity, and excitement. Midoriya knew full well that he should be focusing on his own quirk and that there was no time to waste, but he had to admit that he understood the anticipation of finding out what the quirks of their exchange students were.

"Are… Are we supposed to use our superpowers now?" Lance tilted his head and looked at his hands. "With everybody looking at us like that?"

"What else can we do?" Keith shrugged, pointing his open palm towards the ground as if he expected laser beams to exit his hands. Or, if not laser beams, then at least fire. Laser beams were apparently Hunk's thing. Well, technically, every lion could shoot laser beams, but the scientists of this world had decided that it was easier to give Hunk this ability instead of attempting to channel the yellow lion's special ability through him.

Hunk closed his eyes, his nose scrunching up as he started to concentrate. "Right. We activate our powers by bonding with our lions, right?"

Lance replied by shooting a line of ice out of his hands, shortly followed by Pidge who was apparently capable of shooting vines out of her body now, much in the same way Green used her vine cannon.

"The black lion isn't cooperating. I can't activate any special powers." Shiro announced.

Keith crossed his arms over his chest. "Try using your right hand as an alternative, maybe? I'm not too keen on using my 'quirk' either."

"C'mon, dude, your fire powers are super cool though! You don't plan on getting through our time here relying only on your sword, do you?" Lance groaned when Keith didn't reply. He knew that that was exactly what Keith had been planning to do.

Then again, he could understand Keith's feelings. Using the powers of their lions admittedly felt weird. It was one thing to have a mental bond with a magic robot lion. Being the magic robot lion and yourself at the same time, stuck in one mortal body was a whole new level of strange. There wasn't really a way to describe it; it didn't hurt or interfere with his thoughts, it just felt off. One thing was clear: Altean technology didn't mix well with the quirk of some random scientist.

"Todoroki! Look!" Kirishima exclaimed and pointed toward the exchange students, almost missing the attack of one of Ectoplasm's clones in the process.

The first thing Midoriya noticed when he turned around was the puddle of water around Lance. It was pretty hard to overlook, considering how big it was. The second thing was the wall of ice – well, more like a fence, it was barely three feet high – and the fire surrounding Keith. He glanced at Todoroki with an amused expression.

"Distant relatives of yours, maybe?" Kirishima joked, although Todoroki seemed to take it seriously.

Midoriya, however, focused his attention on another detail. He had been quirkless long enough to be able to recognize someone who wasn't in full control of their quirk. And to say the five exchange students were inexperienced would've been a bit of an understatement.

It's not that they were bad at fighting, not at all – the way they dodged Ectoplasm and counterattacked almost looked elegant, they had the perfect technique and they were in complete sync with each other. It was the kind of team-working ability one could only achieve after having known their teammates for years. That huge amount of skill was why it was even more eye-catching when one of them made a mistake, hurt themselves with their own quirk by simply being too careless.

At least they seemed very eager to improve. They were so focused on the task at hand, it made Midoriya feel bad about slacking off and watching them instead. He was supposed to work on his ultimate move, to come up with something new, something that didn't hurt his arms when he used One for All. The exchange students from some American astronaut school weren't his priority now, no matter how much potential their quirks had or how powerful they seemed.

"It's been 37 hours. We've made no progress whatsoever. If we continue like this, we have a zero percent chance of ever getting home." Keith leaned against the wall and looked at the others expectantly. "Am I the only one who thinks what we're doing is ridiculous? We're wasting time! There's no guarantee the so-called 'scientist' in this world will be able to get us back home, they have no clue about traveling between realities! We don't have time to play superheroes while our whole universe is getting destroyed!"

"Keith, don't start again. Yelling it through the whole school doesn't get us anywhere." Shiro said under his breath. He seemed kind of absent-minded. Having a conversation with his lion, maybe? Lance wasn't quite sure. As for Blue, she'd been quiet ever since the training session had ended, although it was unclear whether she was offended or just exhausted – she hadn't exactly been happy about using her abilities for senseless training practice instead of an actual fight.

"Maybe they've already figured something out. Maybe that's why All Might wants to talk to us." Hunk gestured to the door of the teacher's lounge in front of them with a hopeful smile.

"You're overestimating them, they-"

The door opened just enough for a pair of green eyes to glance outside. A second later, Midoriya stepped out of the teacher's lounge, trying and clearly failing to mask his surprise about encountering the five of them here.

"Are you guys lost?" He quickly closed the door behind him and took a few unsure steps in their direction. "I can show you the way to the dorms if you want-"

"We're supposed to meet All Might in a few minutes, actually. Thanks for the offer, though." Pidge smiled, already grabbing the door to push it open.

Midoriya nodded understandingly and turned on his heels, leaving in a hurry without saying a word. Now that Lance thought about it, his nod was just a tiny bit too vehement to be considered calm. Why did seeing them near the teacher's lounge make Midoriya so nervous?

Their arrival made every teacher in the room look up from their desk. Almost everyone's face seemed more or less familiar to Lance, though that was clearly due to the fact that UA only had a handful of teachers. Apparently, they've met every teacher already, either last night or during their classes today.

"Ah yes, the five paladins! Welcome! Take a seat." A blond man, more or less resembling a scarecrow, pointed to a green sofa on the other side of the room. The five complied and somehow squeezed themselves onto the small sofa, while the man sat down on the chair across from them.

"We haven't met in person yet, I believe. My name is All Might. It's nice to meet you."

Wait. That was All Might? From what he had overheard during the day, Lance had expected All Might to be some Superman-like muscle head guy. Not the exact opposite of that. To be fair though, he had apparently just retired. Elder superheroes weren't required to have perfect physique, most likely.

"Have the scientists made any progress? Have you found a way to get us back home?" Shiro didn't waste any time on formalities and cut straight to the point.

"I am aware of how important it is for you to get back to your reality as soon as possible, but I have to ask you to be patient. We can't figure out how your lions work, so we've changed to plan B. We're looking for people with quirks that could help us and, well, you."

Lance shook his head. "That's what you called us here for? To tell us that it's a hopeless case?"

"Please don't interpret it as that. And to answer your question – no. I don't know if you've heard, but our world isn't entirely peaceful at the moment either. You know, I was considered the symbol of peace for years, but I've recently retired, and we don't know what to expect. UA built dorms for its students to keep them safe, and since you're also practically UA students, for now, we thought you could move into the dorms for the time being." All Might explained.

Lance watched as Keith clenched his fists and waited for the red paladin to start shouting. He didn't have to wait long. "Absolutely not! That would slow us down even more, and we definitely don't need that!"

It was obvious All Might wanted to say something, protest, or defend his decision perhaps. He didn't get a chance to do that, however. Before he could speak, Keith had already stood up and stormed out of the room.

Luckily for Midoriya, though, he overlooked the green-haired boy squatting right next to the door on his way out. That way, Izuku had a chance to hide before the four paladins going after Keith exited the lounge as well, successfully avoiding being discovered this way.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Hey there and welcome back!**_

_**I'm sorry for taking this long to upload another chapter, and for uploading such a short chapter! I literally hate myself for it and I assure you that I'll at least try to make quicker and longer updates in the future, even though I can't really make any promises. Spring usually gets me in a writing mood though, so let's hope, I guess?**_

Izuku took a deep breath and stood up. When he stepped out from his hiding place, he could still see Hunk and Pidge turning the corner, trying to catch up with the others. Before he could regain his composure, he had already taken a few steps in their direction. His body instinctively wanted to chase after the five, it seemed.

There was a tiny part of him which insisted that coming back here to listen in on the conversation between All Might and the exchange students had been a good idea and it was a morally okay thing to do as well. But in comparison, the rest of him – the majority – was overwhelmed with feelings of guilt and shame. He had no right to do that, after all. Others' connection to Izuku's mentor was none of his business. He hadn't heard much, practically nothing, but that didn't make his conscience any better. There was no reason for suspicion, and eavesdropping wasn't exactly a hero-like thing to do.

All Might's voice on the other side of the door motivated him to keep moving. "Aizawa, wait. I'll handle this. You can't forget they're still children." Judging from the volume of his mentor's voice getting louder, he was approaching the door. Izuku had to disappear.

A few seconds later, he was already racing down the stairs, taking the same route Keith and the others had taken. All Might didn't seem to be in a hurry, or he just decided to not follow them after all. Perhaps he was being held back by something or someone. Not that that was a problem. Izuku wasn't in the mood for having to explain himself.

It was raining outside, the five students almost unnoticeable with their gray uniforms melting into the also-gray background. Izuku's uniform was apparently just as effective as camouflage as the others', or his temporary classmates were just too busy talking to notice him approaching them.

"The people here have agreed to help us on one condition, but your stubbornness and impatience are going to cost us their cooperation, Keith! Consider this a mission. This _is _a mission. I know it's hard for you, but wait and play along. Please." Shiro started out stern, but his voice was weakened to a soft, quiet beg by the end.

Hunk furrowed his eyebrows. "Shiro-"

Izuku was about to sneak closer, try and get a better understanding of the situation, make sure that he had misunderstood because of Shiro's words being taken out of context – sure, his words sounded slightly odd, but surely he must've just worded it kind off weird. But then, suddenly, the five in front of him switched the language and Izuku lost the thread of the conversation (then again, did he even have it in the first place?). It wasn't English, he would've recognized that. Nor was it a language that sounded even the slightest bit familiar, the kinds that you have heard before in movies and can recognize, like Russian and French and German. No, it was something completely alien and strange.

Of course he didn't question that. Maybe that was some astronaut jargon used in their school. Not like Izuku expected them to speak Japanese privately as well. It was just the odd timing that set off the weird, nauseating feeling in his stomach.

He did nonetheless ask himself what he should do next. He would hardly be able to get past the others without making it obvious he had listened in on their conversation, and turning around didn't seem like a good idea either, but he was deemed to get noticed sooner or later if he stayed here. Besides, he didn't have a reason to remain put behind his hiding place anymore. There was no way he would get any information to listening to this unfamiliar language he didn't understand.

In the end, he'd gone with the reasonable choice and hidden until the others had decided to leave. When he finally reached the dorms after having waited for seventeen minutes, his hair and clothing were soaking wet.

"Midoriya! What took you so long, where were you? I was starting to get worried." Uraraka stood up from the couch and walked over to him. "There was another TV report about the incident on the weekend. It's a shame you missed it, it was quite interesting."

"That crash that people believe to be an UFO, you mean?" Izuku asked, looking to the couch where Mina was nodding rapidly. In any other situation, he would've stayed there to discuss any updates on the controversial news for the next two hours, but not now. Not when he couldn't shake Shiro's words from his thoughts.

"It's apparently some top-secret stuff. The police still refuse to tell the press anything, but all eye-witnesses are supposed to go to them if they have any info. The media is about 99% sure it's a villain at this point, but if it's that confidential, they probably have some super dangerous quirk. And it's assumed they haven't caught him or her yet." The pink-haired girl explained.

For lack of a better response, Izuku just nodded. His mind was too busy thinking about Shiro and the others to pay attention to some villain attack as he automatically walked over to the couch and let himself fall beside Mina. "By the way, what do you guys think about the exchange students?"

"Huh?" The girl next to him was unmistakably confused about the sudden change in theme. "You mean Pidge and the others? They seem nice. And their school sounds incredibly cool. I probably would've wanted to go there if I hadn't become a hero-trainee...And if the circumstances were different in general, I suppose. Why do you ask?"

"Just... curious." Izuku jumped up, just quick enough to raise suspicion. An idea had hit him all of a sudden, one that had let his instincts take over his body and control his mind, make him do something he should've done ages ago. Quite frankly, it's a wonder some of his classmates like Kaminari and Mina hadn't tried it already. "I better go now. I'm kind of tired, it's best I take a quick nap." With that, he hurried off towards the bedrooms, ignoring the girls' objections telling him to stay there.

The moment he reached his room and slammed the door behind himself, he dove onto the bed and started typing Takashi Shirogane's name into Google.

Just for a moment, he kept his fingers hovering over the phone's keyboard. Should he really do this? There was still a chance that this all was a huge misunderstanding after all, nothing but a miscommunication. Perhaps he was reading too much into Shiro's words, or the boy had expressed himself wrong – that was something that had a high chance of happening when speaking a language one isn't used to speaking all the time, which Izuku assumed was the case – but it certainly wouldn't hurt to play it safe, right? Nobody would get hurt by him checking out the exchange students' social media. He probably should've followed them by now anyways.

With regained determination, Izuku completed the name displayed on the screen and tapped enter.

Four seconds later, a site full of links to social media pages and tons of pictures illuminated Izuku's face. The boy clicked on the first result, just to be greeted with an Instagram page filled with even more pictures.

To his surprise, it turned out the page didn't even belong to Shiro, but a friend of his called Adam. Shiro himself didn't seem to have an Instagram page – or possibly he could've had a private one – but the amount of pictures of him on Adam's page certainly made up for it.

Most pictures featuring the black haired exchange student weren't taken by him, but by a boy – no, a man – with light brown skin and glasses. Adam, Izuku presumed. He usually had his arm wrapped around Shiro in some way in most of the pictures they posed in together.

Now that Izuku examined the pictures a bit more, he noticed other strange details beside a grown adult hugging Shiro. Said details ranged from obvious ones like Shiro's hair color to the small laugh lines in the corners of his eyes that made him look a lot older but also a lot happier.

The man in the photographs _was _Shiro, but he looked nothing like the boy Izuku had met. Disregarding the fact that this version of Shiro had a perfectly ordinary arm, Izuku's Shiro also seemed to have gone through a lot more. Pain and wisdom were written all over the boy, both in his eyes and in his scars.

Turning his attention to Adam's bio, Izuku soon discovered that the guy was in fact 25, happily engaged and working at the same space research facility as his fiance. His fiance just so happened to be Takashi Shirogane, by the way.

Something was foul here. There was no doubt in that.

Although Izuku felt the sudden motivation to act coursing through his veins, at the same time he knew very well that he was unable to do much. The main reason for that being the fact that he had but a vague idea about the situation. He only knew thing's weren't right, the _what _and_ how _were still embraced by the dark fog of the unknown and uncertain.

Despite his best efforts, Izuku had trouble sorting his thoughts. According to this Instagram page, Shiro had a 25 year old fiance, had a completely average arm, and was working at a space research facility, not an astronaut cadet school (though the two might be connected or even the same thing). He also viewed this exchange program as a mission, or at least wanted Keith to view it that way, finding the cooperation of them, or maybe just the teachers, of utmost importance. Keith had to play along, as Shiro had ordered, meaning he probably did or said something wrong in the teachers' lounge. Of course the possibility that the cause for that were Keith's subtle anger issues was there, but he hadn't come off as a lazy or overly impolite person. There was no way, Izuku thought, that Shiro had been reprimanding Keith due to his unwillingness to be here, considering the boy had showed no sign of said unwillingness in the past couple of hours.

No, wait. He shouldn't do this. He shouldn't jump to conclusions. Even though this Instagram page had raised more red flags than there had been before, Izuku shouldn't have immediately assumed the worst. Maybe this whole account was a joke, maybe Shiro had lost his arm not so long ago and dyed his hair… Not to mention that even if Adam was in fact engaged to him, Shiro could've been over 18 and it would've been completely legal, no matter what strange and inexplicable coincidences some of the circumstances were.

Izuku left the site and looked at some of the other results. Most of them were news articles describing some new discoveries made by Shiro, others were old files containing a list of athletic achievements and prizes he won when he'd been in school.

As it turned out, Shiro had never gone to Garrison. Garrison didn't even exist, for that matter. It was neither a space-exploration school nor a research facility. Nothing even remotely related to space had the name Garrison.

There was not a spark of uncertainty in Izuku now. Something was wrong, and the American exchange students were trouble.

It had stopped raining by the time the five paladins returned to UA's dorms with their luggage. Even a rainbow was visible on the clear bright blue sky, as if the weather was determined to forcibly nurse them into relaxation. The sun did nothing but make them even more disgruntled about the situation, though, of course, except maybe for that small hint of a smile Hunk could've sworn to see appear in the corner of Lance's mouth.

"You four get the right wing of the second floor, and Pidge will be housed right next to Yaoyoruzu on the fifth, if that's alright with her." Iida announced matter-of-factually once they entered the room.

"Yeah, it's fine." Pidge shrugged, returning the smile one of the girls, certainly Yaoyoruzu herself, gave her at that response.

"Just let us know if you need any helping moving in, alright? And make sure to come downstairs after you're done. Manners dictate we host a welcome party in your honor." Kaminari gave them a thumbs up and a wink, nearly falling off the couch in the process when he leaned too far over and shifted his center of gravity.

"That's not necessary." Shiro said, raising a dismissive hand into the air. "I'm sure you all have better things to do."

Hunk could've sworn he'd seen Izuku (who had just come downstairs) narrow his eyes the moment he heard Shiro speak, although he couldn't and didn't make anything of it.

"Please, it'd be great getting to know you, considering you're going to stay here for a while and all. Please?" Kaminari was shut up by Lance's agreement before he could get out a third whiny _please_. He grinned in triumphant satisfaction and grabbed the blue paladin's bag at the same time. "Let's go then!"

"So, what's space like?"

Pidge hadn't been ready to get hit with such a complicated question by an invisible girl stuffing her mouth with pretzels.

"It's… complicated. First of all, space is fascinating. Everything is quiet and yet full of chaos. There's logic and science behind everything but it still looks so disorganized and wild. Then you have to jump into action and get to work and you don't have time to appreciate its beauty or… pretty much anything about it. You either have too much time to think in space or not enough."

The green haired frog girl (and more or less everyone in the small circle of girls) looked at Pidge in awe. "Wow. You described that so beautifully, ribbit."

"Yeah! I want to go to space even more now!" Mina beamed, knocking the bowl of pretzels over by a snatch as she leaned forward, arms leaning on her own crossed legs keeping her face from falling into said bowl.

"What's your class like? Are you in the same one as the guys? They seem a bit older than you, I think, they are probably one or two grades above you, right?" The invisible girl was the next to ask a question. Pidge could tell how curious she was just from the tone of her voice, not that she had much to go off anyway.

Uraraka furrowed her brows and bobbed her head in the direction of the common room's couch, another small circle around the Voltron paladins, enthusiastically discussing things like heroes in America and other topics that surely hurt the paladins' head. "If we're already talking about boys, do any of you know what's up with Midoriya? He's been acting kind of weird ever since he… Well, since he got back to the dorms, I suppose? He'd already seemed pretty disinterested in the news report about the UFO, I've already been wondering what had happened to him..." Now that she'd mentioned it, Pidge shifted her gaze to look at the green-haired boy, not all-too-obviously squinting like someone who's searching for something but is almost absolutely sure that something is close proximity to him.

That, however, wasn't quite what got Pidge's attention.

"UFO?"

"Yeah, there was an incident on the weekend. There was a huge crash and an explosion, supposedly because of some new villain or a quirk-related incident. I think you didn't see it because you were still on the plane at the time it happened." Yaoyoruzu explained.

"Oh. And they don't know who it was? Like, what caused the explosion and such?"

"'Afraid not. Now, can someone please tell me that I'm not the only one who thinks something is up with Midoriya?" Uraraka repeated, this time with a voice a tad more pressing and hasty.

"You're right, he does seem kind of off. Why don't you talk to him about it?" Jirou suggested, which was not a response Uraraka had been expecting, at least not judging from her expression.

"You think I should?"

Mina nodded and playfully slapped the brown-haired girl's shoulder blade to urge her to get up and go over.

With newfound determination, Uraraka did exactly that and hurried over to speak to her friend.

However, before she got to her destination, a sudden yell interrupted the scene and all attention turned to Keith and the small orange-blue balls of flame decorating the smoking, black sofa he'd just set on fire. To complete this masterpiece of a disaster, Keith was glowing, literally glowing, fluorescent blue light replacing his dark eyes as he gave off an aura Pidge immediately recognized to be Red's. An aura that was whispering passionate words of danger into her ears, filling her with the knowledge that things were only going to get worse for them now.

_**I'd like to start things off by saying that I am absolutely not proud of this chapter. There are so many things I don't find that good but I've been sick for days now and I'm too tired to rewrite it (now that I think about it, me being sick might have to do something with the chapter not being that good, but sick days are literally the only free days I get nowadays so I had to make it work even with fever and dizziness and such) :/**_

_**I hope you somewhat enjoyed it, at least? I hope I'm not rushing things in the story - I am aware/I think that Izuku is kinda jumping to conclusions here but I mean he's absolutely right and second-guessing suspicious little things is my jam so why not ;)...**_

_**Anyways, I'd be overjoyed if you left a comment containing any form of feedback (except for non-constructive criticism, there's not much I can do with that ;-;). Comments always make my day and motivate me to keep writing! :D**_

_**See you next chapter!**_


	4. Chapter 4

For a spare moment, Keith was back in the castle, standing at a window, looking at the endless sea of black space spread out in front of him. It seemed unusually calm, with nothing in sight, not even a few stars far far away that Keith was so used to seeing.

He blinked and suddenly found himself in the same sea of nothingness, the Castle of Lions looming in the distance as he sunk in dark matter.

After watching his chest fail to rise and fall, Keith realized he wasn't breathing. But he didn't particularly mind it either. As if there was no body to supply oxygen to anymore. Taking the constant, deep purring in the back of his mind into consideration, it was easy to conclude that that was probably the case and that Red had taken on the job of a psychic projector to show him something.

He closed his eyes and concentrated on Red. Communicating with the robot lion this way had become a sort of second nature to him. He didn't have to wait long anymore until the familiar tingle spread all over his body, giving him the exact feeling one got when they stood right next to a loudspeaker at a concert and could feel the vibrations.

Discontent. Impatience, but a sort of curiosity as well, a mix that might've been best described as a twisted wanderlust. And yet it wasn't quite that, because both Red and Keith knew exactly what she actually wanted, what they both wanted but couldn't get.

But why?

Humans who had practically no war weapons were no match for Voltron. Superpowers couldn't hold up against a magical robot-giant using ancient Altean technology. No pro-heroes could stop them if they wanted to leave Earth and experiment a little to try and get back to their reality.

Wait. What was Keith – no, Red – thinking? The paladins of Voltron stood for anything but this, they stood for the peace across the universe and for protecting everyone. They wouldn't reach their goal by forcefully escaping this world, going against the inhabitants of this reality's Earth in the process.

Red's voice changed and became more frantic before suddenly calming and evening out into a soft purr, reminding Keith of a classical piece that kept becoming louder and faster until it turned into a different, quieter theme right at the climax.

The lion began wondering, asking questions. Or at least that's what Keith thought she was doing, because he found his head being flooded with thoughts. Mainly questions. About just how much this reality differed from his own, whether or not aliens existed here too. If there was a war raging light-years away from them.

Perhaps there was a Blue Lion hidden somewhere on this earth as well. If that were the case, why hadn't someone found her yet? Or maybe she had been found, maybe this world was just unaware that five average people were fighting for billions of lives out there.

Either way, if there really was anything outside this earth, it was in their best interest to search space for that something or someone. They could request help to get back to their reality, or just help out there until they had found another solution. Alien races undoubtedly knew more about alien technology than these superhero-fanatics on this earth.

Keith desperately wanted to say they had to go out there, but the lack of air formed an uncomfortable knot in his throat and the words went lost before they exited his mouth. He felt like Red understood anyway. After all, her feelings resembled his; they both wanted to go home.

"Hey. Hey, is everything alright? Keith?" A minor electric shock and a sudden jolt later, the space around him had dissolved, Hunk's worried frown replacing the comforting sight of the oh-so-familiar space.

Keith was vaguely aware of the fact he was lying, but he still had to look around and take a moment to fully understand his situation – back in his dorm room, currently resting on the freshly made bed, surrounded by the concerned faces of his friends.

"What happened to you?" Lance asked, helping him sit upright while Pidge hurried out the room, probably to cover for them and come up with a suitable excuse to feed class 1-A.

"Red wanted to talk. She thinks we should look for alien life in this reality and see if they can help us get back."

"Well, she almost burned down the dorm because of your little chit-chat," Lance said, giving Keith no time to think about what he'd just said before continuing. "Besides, I thought we weren't allowed to fly our lions…?"

Shiro nodded. "We're not."

"How about we give the scientists a little more time? There's no guarantee looking for a solution out there would actually work out, and if we were still stranded by the end of that mission, having done something like that would just cause trouble." Hunk reasoned, and hardly anyone could argue with that.

"Hunk's right. Now, I think we should head back to the lounge before the others start to worry. Keith, if you're feeling unwell, you can stay here." With that, Shiro put a gentle but firm hand on Keith's shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze before turning away and heading for the door, waiting for the others to follow. "We can discuss this matter again once the commotion around our arrival has died down, alright?"

"No. It's not alright."

Keith shifted to face Shiro. Silent tension filled the air as the red paladin stared daggers at the others, his gaze mirroring the anger he was filled with, the anger of an ancient creature who had spent her entire existence protecting her world only to be denied now. "You said this is a mission, but I don't see the point of it. Is it to keep the existence of other realities a secret, or what? We don't even know if Voltron exists in this world or not. Maybe it does, and it'll arrive on Earth in two weeks, announcing to everyone on this planet that the universe is in danger, and then, our time spent here will turn out to have been wasted!" At the end of that sentence, he sucked in a sharp breath then snorted, as if the concept was just too ridiculous to keep back a constrained laugh. "Is the ignorance of these people more important to you than our entire universe?"

Shiro promptly closed the door before he sighed and began talking, so calm that it sent chills down Keith's spine. "It is not. I'm sorry if I gave you that impression. I want to stop Zarkon just as much as you do. But the truth is, we can't just rush into things like that, Keith. This is a completely new situation, and we have to evaluate things before we act and make a mistake. We know absolutely nothing about this world, what these superpowers are capable of, and how far the people are willing to go. They are strangers to us as we are to them. You of all people should know that patience is an important quality. But perhaps being a paladin has made you forget that there is life other than war. If that is the case, I hope you'll remember soon. Goodnight."

With that, Shiro opened the door again and exited without another word, leaving behind Keith to speechlessly stare at the spot on the wall he'd stood next to while Hunk and Lance awkwardly followed the black paladin.

After Keith's little accident, life went on painstakingly normal for the next one and a half days. With the provisional hero license exam drawing near, Izuku had no choice but to force himself to concentrate on developing an ultimate move without injuring his arms any further, and yet he still piped up whenever Shiro spoke or Keith used unusually strong flames.

Latter became a rather common occurrence, however. The five exchange students improved their quirks nicely, not losing any of their excellent technique in the process. They could've easily beaten a part of the class at this point, Izuku found, and his theory was quickly proven during a short one-on-one combat training at the end of the day's session.

"I'm beginning to think you're actually from a military school, with the fighting skills and those uniforms and all," Sero commented in the locker room, sheepishly rubbing the blueish spot on his shin Pidge had given him a few minutes prior. "Is Katie training to be a spy or something?"

Lance grinned. "She'd be overqualified. I don't know of anything Pidge _can't _do."

"Well, I can think of a few things she's lacking in." Mineta joked as he leaned against the wall they shared with the girls' locker room to pull off his boots and diaper-like pants. "Then again, innocent girls have their pros too…"

Before any of the boys could throw a piece of clothing at him – which was the usual etiquette in such situations – Lance stepped up and presented Mineta with the most casual death-stare one could possibly muster. "Not cool, buddy. That's not how you win the ladies' favor. It just makes you a scumbag. Pidge has achieved more than you could ever dream of and she does not deserve being treated like that. Lay off."

Of course, everyone knew that simple words would not stop Mineta's disgusting rampage to show there were still terrible men out there, but it seemed like he got the 'Pidge is a no-go' message at least. Then again, Lance most definitely seemed like he would gladly use violence the next time around.

"Seriously though, where did you learn to fight like that?" Ojiro changed the topic with an apologetic smile. "The way you parried Tokoyami's attacks was pretty impressive, Lance."

Kaminari chimed in. "Yeah, do they prepare you for an extraterrestrial invasion in your astronaut school or what?"

Izuku turned his head curiously, waiting to hear more about the nonexistent school the five had claimed to go to, but Hunk's laugh was the only answer they got. But that response fit perfectly in that context, in a way that automatically closed off any further discussion and almost ended the conversation altogether.

Luckily, a new question came to his mind before the pause turned into embarrassed silence. "What exactly do you learn about space at school? We barely hear about any new discoveries with all the news being about pro-heroes…"

"We could probably hold an entire presentation about that..." Shiro said. He had just finished buttoning up his shirt over the black bodysuit he would never take off and was now heading for the door while fixing his tie. "Maybe on another day, when we have more time?"

"Oh, alright then." Izuku nodded with a wobbly smile. He couldn't overlook the fact that Shiro had been in an awful mood all day, but he still hadn't found a way to talk to him about it. Besides, what if he accidentally let Adam's name slip during the conversation? Shiro would find out he'd looked him up and they would never talk again. No matter what doubts Izuku had about the exchange students' background, he did not want that to happen.

Judging from the frowns and grimaces on the others' faces, Shiro's mood had alarmed them as well. They sent helpless, puzzled looks to Hunk, Lance, and Keith, who sent the same look right back at them.

"Geez, calm down, he's just having a bad goddamn day, that's all," Kacchan growled, rolling his eyes and pushing past the others to get to the door. "Jirou told me she couldn't sleep because of all the commotion on the floor below her. The guy probably didn't sleep much either. There's no way in hell you three didn't hear it too."

"Oh no." Hunk's face lit up with realization and he mumbled out quick apologies before hurriedly putting on his jacket and going after his friend.

"He had a nightmare again, didn't he?" Lance asked as he and Keith ran down the hallway.

"That's the most plausible explanation, yeah." The latter nodded as he came to a staggering halt. There was no way they'd find him, having left the locker room a good ten minutes after the black paladin. Shiro was long gone by now, hanging out god knows where to calm down and recollect his thoughts.

"Why did you stop?"

"There's no point. We wouldn't be any help to him."

"Fine. Change of plans, then." Panting, the blue paladin pressed his back against the wall, his legs giving out under him as he slowly slid to the ground and flashed Keith a resigned smile. The sight was reminiscent of the old days in a twisted way, but Keith couldn't decide if it was cadet Lance or paladin Lance sitting in front of him. Maybe a little bit of both, with the playful glint in the eyes and the tired but cocky posture. "I've been meaning to talk to you about this in a while, but I never got the chance. You're avoiding me."

"I'm not. You're the one who hangs out with Ashido all day." Keith placed a hand on his hip. "What did you want to talk about, then?"

"N- Well, f- First of all, I do not hang out with her all day, she was just lending me her skincare products and we got sidetracked. Second of all, you and Aoyama were practically glued together yesterday-"

"Aoyama wants to be friends because he relates to having an uncooperative quirk with side effects. I don't see the problem with that. So, what were you saying?"

Lance pressed his lips together, shifting his gaze at the wall above Keith's head while he quietly drummed on his thighs with his hands. "Right. So, you remember that small argument you had with Shiro two days ago? Well, it made me think. You know, at first, I was actually kind of relieved to be here. Fighting a war is stressful, and it's pretty nice to not be on the verge of death for once. Not to mention how much I've missed Earth."

Rambling on and on, the boy's explanation was beginning to turn into more of a rant, but Keith didn't intervene. He knew that pouring out your heart to someone always helped, and if this was the bonding moment he would get, he would take it.

"But I've realized that what I miss most from Earth is my family. And even if there does exist a version of me in this reality, his family isn't my family. Not quite. Not enough. Listening to you that night, I recognized that this whole situation is a ticking time bomb – the scientists in this world rely way too much on their quirks and they don't get things done. If it's up to them, we'll be stuck here for the rest of our lives. But Zarkon doesn't wait. If I want to protect my family, I need to follow through with your plan.."

"What?" Keith blurted out.

"What I'm trying to say is, let's run away and explore this reality's space together, I guess?"

"That… Your explanation is quite chaotic, you know that?"

Lance sighed, a grin spreading on his face once he was absolutely sure Keith wouldn't refuse the offer. "I know. Are you in or not?"

"Yes…? I mean, I have no idea how to turn our lions back to their original forms, but I am definitely in."

"Thank gosh. Alright, meet me at the dorm's bathroom at midnight and we'll figure things out from there." Lance got up, once more on eye-level with Keith, then turned on his heels, the smile practically audible in his voice when he spoke again. "We should really find Shiro though. Come on."

It took Izuku six minutes of scrolling through screenshots of news articles to comprehend he'd found himself back on Adam W.'s Instagram page. He had uploaded a new picture since the last time, him in a lab coat, sitting in the cafeteria of some sorts with a handful of colleagues. The caption was missing, but the comments were kind enough to inform Izuku that the picture was actually taken several days ago.

Casual, boring stuff, nothing out of the ordinary. Just an average person. That's all Adam was, and yet Izuku still couldn't let it go. He was still looking for something, _anything_, that would give Shiro and the others a reason to lie about their school.

Scrolling back to older posts, he went through all the scientific discoveries the two had made once again and fact-checked everything. Nothing. Takashi Shirogane and Adam W. had, in fact, studied the moons of Pluto, and they had actually improved a lot of space travel technology. Adam had even spoken out about the importance of astrophysics in the age of superheroes, a talk that Izuku promised himself to watch when he had more time.

Eventually, Izuku gave up and pressed the 'off' button on the side of his phone to get his mind away from such things and give himself a chance to get some sleep. Barely a minute later, he was already back on the device, warily tapping the blue 'follow' button on his screen.

Upon second thought, why couldn't he just ask Adam himself? True enough, that would come off as weird in several different ways, but wasn't lying about the school one goes to just as strange? Was involving Shiro's fiance in this really necessary in the first place?

Izuku's fingers closed the private chat the second they had opened it. No, he would not do this. The teachers trusted Shiro, and Izuku trusted the teachers. He had to calm down before his paranoia piled up into a huge disaster. Thinking about things logically, he was most likely going crazy right now. Having fought so many villains must've messed with his head.

Before he could conclude that the hero career wasn't for him, however, he managed to shut down his thoughts and put his phone away for good. He would talk to Shiro about it tomorrow and it would all turn out to be a huge misunderstanding.

Or a huge mistake.

_***dunks Mineta's head into respect women juice***_

_**Hey there! I don't have much to say this time (mostly because it's 1 am and my mind has run out of words) except that I thank you for reading and hope you enjoyed it! I also hope you guys are doing well despite the current events in the world... Stay safe!**_

_**If you have any feedback, I'd be really happy if you left a review :D I'll try to upload the next chapter as soon as possible, see you!**_


	5. Chapter 5

Lance had always considered himself an expert at sneaking out. Hell, he'd become a paladin because of sneaking out of the Garrison the fateful night Shiro had crash-landed on Earth.

And even though UA greatly differed from the Garrison, a school was still a school with the same, good old 'super-strong' security system he had seen Pidge crack a thousand times. All it took was asking her for a quick recap before dinner and catching a camera-bot with Keith a few hours later to rewire it and switch to some previously recorded footage. With the help of Aoyama's and Ashido's student IDs as a back-up plan, cameras reporting yesterday's feed and a not-quite-unimpressive athletic feast to get over the school's walls without alerting anyone, Lance and Keith finally found themselves outside school grounds at two in the morning.

"And now?" He asked, as if he didn't know well enough that their plan was nonexistent. All of their previous actions had been more or less improvised on the spot, and the following ones would likely be no exceptions.

"I don't know. We need to get out of the city, that's for sure." Keith shrugged, choosing a random direction and beginning a fast pace.

"Oh really, Captain Obvious?" Lance let out an over-dramatic gasp. He was unusually thankful for his lanky legs when he had no problem catching up to and passing the red paladin – snide remarks wouldn't have had much of an effect if he kept following behind like some sheep.

"_You_ asked!"

"Sure, but I was expecting an answer like 'we'll take _this _subway and get off at _this_ station and walk to _this _location'... You know, because you're supposedly pretty smart and all?"

Biting his lip, Keith decided to ignore that comment, instead grabbing Lance's wrist to take a sudden left turn and pull him through a small side-street that consisted of a neatly arranged row of cream-colored two-story houses. "Your plan sounds good. We'll just have to ask someone for directions."

"Wait, we don't even have money, it-" Lance protested, silenced barely a second later by the other pulling out a small black wallet full of coins and some notes.

Oh right. The money they'd gotten from the principal when they had just arrived in that reality. But they had entrusted Shiro with it, so why was _Keith_ waving it around now?

He decided he'd save that question for later. Instead, Lance nodded solemnly and buried his hands in the pockets of his jacket, fixing his gaze on the asphalt while he let his mind wander off.

Everything around him felt so normal at the moment that he didn't quite know what to do with that sensation.

The flickering lamppost at the end of the street. The distant noise of cars driving by. The neon signs of fast-food restaurants towering over the sea of rooftops.

He was back on Earth. He was back on Earth and walking around town like a normal human. Everything was alright. There were no aliens, no lions – not yet, anyway –, no pesky 'professional superheroes' that watched his every move. It was just like the times he would sneak out with Hunk, and yet oh-so-different.

So much had changed.

Looking up at Keith and meeting his eyes, he decided he didn't quite mind that. Yes, he would've given everything to see his family, to know they were safe and sound and not mourning his presumed death or whatever. But he also wouldn't have wanted to change a single thing regarding his adventures in space. He had no regrets.

His family wasn't the only reason he wanted to return to his reality. He wanted to go for Allura and Coran, for all the aliens who depended on them. For Shiro, Hunk, Pidge, and Keith, who all had their own reasons for wanting to go back.

In a way, Lance's main motivation had become all the friends that had grown to be much more than that.

"What are you thinking about?" Keith asked at last. He must've gotten tired of Lance staring at him.

Lance shrugged. "Stuff."

"Stuff?"

"It's weird to be back on Earth. Even weirder to go to space again."

"...Yeah. Yeah, it is."

It wasn't unusual for Shouto Todoroki to have nightmares. He was used to waking up in the middle of the night, hearing cursed words spoken in the past echoing in his head.

Being greeted with buzzing radio static was something entirely new.

He sat up and kicked the blanket off his legs.

The white noise was clearly coming from his desk, even though he couldn't recall leaving any sort of electronic device there earlier.

Shouto shuffled over to the source, grabbing random objects in the dark until he finally heard the buzz move slightly to the left as he pulled his hand back. Having found what he'd been looking for, he ran his fingers across the surface to identify the item; his mother's old radio he'd discovered in one of the boxes when he had first moved in.

As far as he knew, he hadn't ever used it. Because his mother had received it from his great-grandmother in the first place, the device was worn down and the sound quality was no good. It was best used as only a decoration now.

So why was it turned on all of a sudden?

Not that it mattered. Such a thing could be easily explained by Kaminari accidentally messing with the electronic devices in his surroundings. Shouto could just turn it off and go back to sleep.

All of a sudden, a woman's voice overlaid the static. It took him a few seconds to comprehend that he did not understand what she was saying, maybe because he knew she needed help despite that. Her rushed speech sounded panicked, albeit she must've calmed down halfway through, as she slowed down and tried her best at a firm voice.

"Paladins of Voltron, can you hear me?" A different woman had taken over, switching to a heavily accented, somewhat broken try at English. It sounded worse than Shouto in middle school, and that said a lot. "What's your situation?"

"The princess and I are very worried. Please send us your location coordinates." This time, it was a man speaking, rambling on about something Shouto didn't understand before pausing.

"Wait. Princess, what if they got separated? What if the lions all got sent to different reali-?"

That was the last thing Shouto heard before the transmission cut out and the radio static returned again and he was left to ponder about the cryptic message in the dark.

Wandering through the streets had eventually led them to a bigger, better lit road where a still open convenience store drew in people doing some necessity-shopping. It was unusually lively; perhaps a spot beloved by half-drunken party-goers, late-night snack-seekers, or people working night shifts.

"So, I'm the one doing the talking, I suppose?" Lance questioned, though that had been kind of obvious since the start. A sort of unspoken decision they had made back when they'd first resolved on asking for directions.

Keith nodded and took a few more steps towards the entrance, his expectant gaze urging Lance to do the same.

"Excuse me, Ma'am," the latter begun, earning a surprised look from the middle-aged woman leaving the store with five full plastic bags hung on her arms. Because a Latino speaking perfect Japanese was a lot weirder than guys with Lego blocks for heads, it seemed. "if you don't mind me asking, could you please tell us where the nearest subway or bus station is located?"

"Oh…" The woman paused, looking around as if she was desperately searching for someone to help her out of the situation. "I don't think I'm the best person to ask… But I think it's three streets from here. Might depend on where you want to go, though."

"Ah, well, we're-"

"Boys! What are you doing here at this time of day?" A tall, muscular man in a weird get-up – a superhero most likely – answered the lady's pleads for help and stepped in. He wore a bright smile that did not at all match his furrowed eyebrows. "Shouldn't you be at home? Your parents must be worried!"

This earned a disapproving look from both paladins. Sadly, it didn't deter the guy in the slightest.

"We're looking for the nearest subway or bus station, Sir."

The hero's attitude changed at the drop of a hat as Keith and Lance went from a delinquent-status to potential supporters in his mind, immediately insisting on accompanying the _'poor lost teenagers'_ on their way to the station.

"Are you on some kind of trip, then?" Quantum Crow – introducing himself was the second thing he'd done after they'd set off towards their destination – inquired, ruffling a clearly uncomfortable Keith's hair in the process. "Or are you new here?"

"I guess you could call it a trip, yeah." Lance shrugged. He too wanted desperately for this to be over.

"You guess? That doesn't sound all too confident now, does it? Where are you from?"

"Far, far away." He replied, surprised when his voice melted together with Keith's.

"America."

Lance looked at the red paladin with surprise. Their gazes met, and the look on Keith's face was just too ridiculous not to laugh. To his relief, Keith didn't take it too seriously and joined in with a weak chuckle.

It was the sort of private moment where one cracked up for no apparent reason, where even the smallest thing from a specific person could set off a smile. And gosh, had Lance missed laughing so carefree and comfortably.

Of course, Quantum Crow had to ruin the moment. "Yeah, I guess America _is_ pretty far away. Nothing too bad though. I personally think long flights are the most enjoyable. But your parents let you kids travel this far all alone?"

Did they really look that young? Maybe it was the millennia-old lioness talking, but Lance felt quite mature compared to other teens around here.

"Yeah…? Why wouldn't they? We're more than able to look out for ourselves." Keith argued.

"Fair enough. Your Japanese is quite impressive as well. I suppose I'm a bit overprotective, if that's even something you can be with strangers." The pro-hero grinned. "Oh look, we're here. Just get off at the fourth- no, the fifth stop."

"Thank you," Lance said with an amused smile, not even stopping to say goodbye.

"No problem! Quantum Crow is always willing to help! Have a nice trip, guys!"

Keith smirked as the hero flailed his arms – a sorry excuse of a wave, Lance assumed – and ran off into the night in his flashy cyberpunk-Zorro-cosplay.

"_I don't know about you, but I like him. He's my favorite superhero now._" Lance gently elbowed Keith's side, then turned on his heels to buy their tickets.

"Can we focus on the mission, please? It's almost morning. We lost nearly an hour trying to find here."

"That's what we've been doing this whole time, Mullet. Missions usually don't just take less than five minutes."

Keith pursed his lips, placing a banknote into Lance's outstretched palm. "I know. Sorry."

"School starts around eight, most students would wake up around six. We still have hours, okay?" Lance assured, pocketing the tickets and the change handed to him by the machine and heading for the bus. "Come on."

He sat down in the last row and watched as Keith came to a halt in front of him, grabbing the edge of another seat to keep himself from falling once the bus slowly set in motion.

"So, what's the plan? What are we going to do once we're out there?"

The red paladin, ever so decisive and stubborn, shrugged. Perhaps this whole thing was wearing him down to the point not even breaking out of the nation's top hero school got his blood boiling, perhaps he was just tired. Either way, Lance did not like Keith's low-energy alter ego.

"Well, _I'd _say we go find that certain empty lot or whatever, do what we're supposed to do to bond with our lions when they're a part of us and repeat that until we summon them. Then, we fly into space, distance ourselves a few galaxies from Earth, and look for alien life. We _have _to find it eventually if we go deep enough and travel as far away from Earth as possible." His rambling slowly died out when the only response he got was a curt nod.

Keith had closed his eyes and scrunched up his nose in concentration.

"How's Red?" Lance asked while attacking the other's side with his index finger to get his attention.

Yelping, Keith slapped his hand away. "She finds your idea good, however simple it may be. Sorry if it looked like I wasn't paying attention to you."

Starting to feel kind of bad now, Lance took his eyes off the boy and looked out the window. The yellow lights in the distance shone like the sea of stars he would see from the Castle of Lions every time the ship swam around in dark matter.

It was amusing how he ended up missing space now when he'd always longed for home whenever he was away.

"You know what I like most about Earth?"

"Hmm?" He could see Keith raise his eyebrows in the corner of his vision. The sight immediately made him smile.

"The diversity of little moments that make you feel like time has stopped. Where reality just isn't like it normally is. Driving through the middle of nowhere at night, for example." Lance gestured to the window with his head. "You don't get that in space."

Keith nodded understandingly, but Lance could see the gears in his head turning, trying to fully comprehend what exactly he meant by that. It wasn't an unusual thing for people who didn't have the patience to think about the world to not grasp his thoughts on that matter at first.

"I'm getting distracted, I know, and I'm sorry," he quickly dismissed the subject. They didn't have the time to chat about his obscure thoughts.

Keith's expression softened a bit. "That's okay. We don't have to get off yet anyway."

Lance let out a sigh of relief. Did this mean he could carry on with his ramblings?

"What is it for _you_? Do you even _like_ Earth? You seem more than eager to leave, and I know it's because the universe is in danger and Voltron is the only weapon holding back Zarkon from destroying everything, but… Still."

"I..." Keith opened his mouth, but the words seemed to have gotten stuck in his throat. "I'm not sure. We should get off now."

"Wait, no, you're not _seriously_ changing the subject! The pro-hero guy said the fifth stop, not the fourth!" Lance protested, but before he knew it, the bus had hit the brakes and Keith was gone.

Lance stood across from him with crossed arms, looking at him expectantly.

"Try to concentrate. Patience yields focus," Keith recited, closing his eyes once more as he listened to the calming purring in the back of his head.

"Oh, so you're okay with bonding with your lion but not with _me? _I thought you _wanted_ to have a bonding moment?"

"So you _do_ remember it!" He narrowed his eyes. Couldn't Lance just focus on why they were here?

"Concentrate, Keith, you said it yourself!" Lance back-pedaled, facing away from him and finally letting the silence return, giving Keith a second chance at talking to Red.

_So_, he wondered, giving his attention to his lion's purring once more, _did Red have any idea how to do this?_

She wasn't quite sure.

Such an answer just didn't sound right coming from an ancient magic robot lion destined to save the universe.

The sensation of warmth across his skin _did_ provide partial comfort though. What had been the coldness of night air turned into a blazing fire that embraced but refused to burn him. He felt empowered; nearly invincible, like the physical restraints of his mortal body simply didn't exist anymore. It was only passionate fire and power he consisted of.

Once the fleeting feeling of being drunk with power passed, Keith opened his eyes, only to see the ever-so-familiar glowing red control panel in front of him.

He was home.

Looking to his left, he could see Blue standing there in all her glory, a grinning Lance's face appearing in holographic form next to Keith's hand.

"That was easier than I'd thought... Gosh, it feels so good to be flying my girl again, right Blue?" The blue paladin gave the wall of his lion a gentle pat. "Let's take these ladies for a ride, shall we?"

Blue prepared for takeoff and barely five seconds later, Lance was already rocketing towards the night sky like a blue reverse-meteor. About three-hundred feet above Keith, the lion decelerated and changed into a slower backward-float.

"Are you coming, buddy?"

Right. Keith grabbed Red's controls and began lifting the massive robot-lion off the ground, hovering over the deserted field just long enough to make sure they hadn't caused any major damages. The Voltron lions were _massive_, after all.

Quiznak, he hadn't realized how much he'd missed flying.

Riding the lions was a feeling that could hardly be explained to someone who hadn't experienced it first hand. It was a thousand times better than any sort of flier the Garrison could come up with. Alone the absolute freedom one felt when speeding through the sky. You could give your lion the smallest of impulses and she would know exactly what you meant as if she was an extension of your body. Like an extra limb with a little more free will.

Okay, Keith wasn't the best at describing it either.

Passing Blue, Keith soared into the clouds and even higher, the stars coming into sight as he left Earth's atmosphere behind.

Lance did a few loops for good measure before coming to a stop beside him. "The stars are beautiful tonight, aren't they?"

"They are magnificent." He smiled. "Let's hope it stays like that. Red, do you know the way?"

Of course, she did. It would take a while without wormholes, Keith was aware, but even this took less time than waiting for Earth's scientists to figure things out.

"Alright... Lance-"

"The one who finds extraterrestrials first wins!" Lance shouted over the intercom, speeding off towards the galaxies next door.

**Hey there! Thanks for reading this chapter!**

**I know it's super Lance & Keith centric (and Shouto's scene low-key feels out of place), I'm sorry, but that also means the next chapter will be focusing on those left behind in UA, so there's that, I guess...?**

**Also, I really hope I didn't get too philosophical or something with Lance. I just feel like he's the type of person who appreciates the small things, you know?**

**Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Please tell me what you think/what you liked in the comments, feedback always helps me a lot! On another note, I hope you stay safe and healthy! See you next chapter!**


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